If the straightjacket fits...

OK, enough with the cutesy Grant crap. Let's get back to discussing his defective parental units. This blog is beginning to edge away from "man, those people are warped...but entertaining" to "awwwww...more pictures of their cute kid burping up lunch...that was funny at first..."

So Erin has had a theory for a long time now that I've got a little of the autism in me. (That's how you say it when you've got a medical defect here in Indiana. "I've got the autism." You might similarly say "I've got the cancer" or "I've got a bit of the fever" as though there's one strain of each disease stalking around our state like the headless horseman.)

Erin based this theory on a number of observations. First off, she worked one summer at an autism camp, and as she told me stories about her autistic campers, a couple of things occurred. For starters, she frequently found herself saying "Wow...that seems just like something you'd do" and secondly, I frequently found myself saying "Wow...I would totally go for that."

For example, she noted that her autistic campers frequently "flipped out" (for lack of an appropriate term) when things strayed from within the boundaries of how things are "supposed" to behave. I suffer from similar freak outs. If Erin leaves me to babysit Grant and tells me she'll be home at 7pm, when she arrives at 8pm with some story about having to stop for gas or be stranded on the highway, she will usually be telling it to me while I sit in the middle of the family room floor, head between my knees, rocking back and forth while mumbling the lyrics to "Paint It Black."

Another example is that we've often heard autistic kids talk of wanting to be placed inside a "squeezing machine" that puts pressure on their sides. If one of these costs less than a small family sedan, you now know what you can get me for Christmas.

I've often watched Erin wrap Grant up in a "baby cocoon" and wished something similar (outside the "nut house") existed for adults. Nothing sounds better to me than sleeping while wrapped up like a mummy. I might even be up for sleeping in a coffin if I could have one delivered without the neighbors seeing it left on the doorstep.

So last night Erin, partly in jest and partly because she wants documentation before having me committed, took a king sized sheet and wrapped me up like she used to wrap Grant up. It was heavenly. She propped my head up on a pillow, and I watched the second half of the Colts game in sheer, 200 thread count ecstasy.

Unfortunately Erin fell asleep during the 4th, and my forehead began to itch. Major bummer not having arms or hands at this point. I also still had my glasses on, which wasn't conducive to going to sleep. A few minutes later, my dessert beer began a-callin' which led to some pretty ugly scenarios. Suddenly my "man-coon" wasn't such a great idea.

I managed to fling my glasses off my forehead and go to sleep unaided. At about 2am, I woke up with my bladder threatening to secede from the union, and my body temperature was approximately 108 degrees. I was suddenly swaddled in hell's blanket. I managed to get free and sprint for the toilet, narrowly avoiding being made to wear a "man diaper" to bed the next evening.

I keep life interesting...right, hon?